Republicans need to go negative

What a sad state Republicans are in. Leaderless and rudderless, they flail about, trying to figure out who they are and which of various political Pied Pipers onstage today will lead them from the wilderness.

What they fail to see is that there will be no real agreement among them about what to do or whom to support for years, until a leader emerges in 2016 who is charismatic and principled enough to unite the party behind a set of ideas that might sweep them to victory.

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But, like any group of bickering friends, they can agree more easily on what they don’t like. And that’s what they must do now, as the White House edges closer to racking up another political victory in the sequestration debate.

If Republicans want a chance at resurgence, they must take a page or two out of President Obama’s worn playbook and veer sharply negative.

But only a page or two. Republicans should not lower themselves to the level of a president who routinely lobs ad hominem political epithets their way, castigating them as intolerant, heartless and petty ogres who live only to serve their masters in the top income tax bracket.

Rather, they must explain why the seemingly good-hearted prescriptions of the Left go all wrong and create more pain than they were intended to ease. Only by first knocking down the liberal edifice constructed by Obama can Republicans rebuild the popular conservative mandate that had dominated politics since Reagan.

Mitt Romney indeed attacked Obama’s policies and delineated his failures. But, not being a true conservative, he couldn’t explain why Obama’s policies don’t work, or why conservative ideas would succeed. Without an understanding of what was at stake, enough voters decided to stick with the status quo and kept Obama in power.

Only once people understand why liberal policies fail and link the miserable state of the economy to Obama – something the president has skillfully avoided – can Republicans begin to make the case for their own ideology.

But today, Republicans are hiding in their bunkers, cowering at the thought that someone might not like them if they suggest tough medicine and point out that the Democrats’ offering of sugary treats is bad for the nation’s health.

It takes a little bit of extra effort, and a little faith in the intelligence of your audience, to explain why seemingly benign measures are harmful. It also takes a certain fearlessness, because people like Obama will immediately brand you as a comrade of Satan for giving the hook to Uncle Sam as he’s handing out money to the aggrieved.

And so Republicans must explain their principles as they turn negative. Like saying, for example, that …

• Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage costs jobs.

• His federal bailout of the automakers was merely a gift to the unions.

• Obama’s insistence that women should be guaranteed equal pay is wrong – they should instead be guaranteed they won’t face discrimination.